


A Court of Sand and Secrets (Oblivion)

by IonicPaladin



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: ACoTaR AU, OC, OCs - Freeform, Original Characters - Freeform, Other, The Court of Nightmares (ACoTaR)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 05:45:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14537946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IonicPaladin/pseuds/IonicPaladin
Summary: What if Rhysand's sister was not killed by Tamlin's family, but spared by Tamlin instead? (POSSIBLE ACOFAS SPOILERS)





	A Court of Sand and Secrets (Oblivion)

The first thing she could remember was the rain. The smell of petrichor and mud, the splashing of feet as people took shelter. She thought differently, smiling wildly at the pouring rain, not bothering to put on a rain coat as she placed on her green boots and left the house.

Her mother called after her, something about being careful, but she didn’t care, especially as she twirled and laughed while others tried to avoid her.

It had been a wonderful time, the joy, the freedom, the drops of water falling down her wings…until her unfastened boot caught on the edge of the cobblestone path-

And she fell face first into a puddle.

“Sera!”

…

“Brother?”

Rhysand barely glanced over, but she knew his attention was on her.

“Will you head to the camps today?”

She had never been there herself, but her mother had told her plenty of stories. It didn’t seem like a good place to go if you weren’t safe just for being female.

“I’ll be back soon, little one.”

A pat on the head she pushed away angrily. “I’m not little!” Rhys chuckled and it turned into a laugh when she huffed.

Her brother turned serious then and she felt a chill at the intensity, at the power there. Her wings flared and she noticed how his did the same. “Do you wish to be a brave warrior, Seraphim?”

The girl nodded. She’d always seen his weapons and leather armor. More than once had she spent her time in the gardens of the house pretending to be a warrior like her big brother.

“Do you know there are different kinds of warriors?”

“Yes!” She replied eagerly, “there are spearmen, and bowmen, and swordsmen, and-”

Rhysand chuckled again, “did you know our mother is a warrior?”

 _Mother?_ She thought, thinking that was the last thing her dress-making mother was. “Are we speaking of a different mother?”

When her brother patted the seat next to him on the chaise, Sera grinned, bouncing next to him as she sat. “Little one, there are different kinds of warriors, and not all of them are born and bred for battle.”

Although still confused, she nodded, liking that Rhysand was paying any sort of attention to her and not wanting to stop the conversation. He touched at her hair, his eyes staring at some point over her head. “When someone does something for the good of everyone else, for the good of our family?” He waited until she nodded, “ **That** makes you a powerful warrior.”

Sera went quiet, thinking it over and it seemed her silence was answer enough for her brother, who kissed her brow and stood up. He watched her with a look she was too young to comprehend. “Don’t worry, little one, I will make sure you will never see a hint of violence in your life.”

…

It should not have been a surprise to know that Rhysand had been wrong.

Between tears and blood, Seraphim watched the large males take her mother away, while another held her body down into the muddy ground, reminding her of that first time she fell in a puddle when her foot caught a stone. Only this time, her mother would not come running to pick her up and wash away the dirt.

“…Mama…”

A scream pealed out of her mother and Sera wanted to close her eyes, wanted to plug her nose and cover her ears. She had never seen so much blood, had never known so much pain.

“Wait,” one of the males said, turning to Sera.

Her mother yelled at him, calling attention, begging them to let the girl go and to keep her. The male kicked her so hard in the head, Sera feared he had killed her.

As her mother groaned, the same male spoke again. He had a scar on his upper lip and eyes the color of fresh leaves, but he was as terrifying as the nightmares Sera had when she had been younger, of shadows and figures who hunted her in the middle of the forest.

“Cut off the kid’s wings first.”

Sera soiled herself, bile rising up, the fear so potent she was liable to pass out.

Her eyes grew the size of saucers as he approached her. As he sneered and brushed the wet hair out of her face. “Pretty little thing, aren’t you?”

“We came here for the mother.”

The silence that stretched made Sera aware of her own frantic breathing, of the loud beating of her heart. At her mother’s cracked voice, still pleading.

“You backing out of this, little brother?”

The pressure on her back lifted a fraction, but it did little to quell the terror. “Not at all, but why hurt the child when we came here for her?”

“…please.”

One of the other males kicked at Sera’s mother again, keeping her on the ground. “Quiet, whore.” The male’s voice was deeper than the first, older. When he turned to Sera she went still.

So much hatred in that gaze. Sera knew what awaited them, what awaited her.

“Cut off the girl’s wings first.”

Her mother screamed again, kicking and punching, making the one holding her grunt. But she couldn’t get to Sera, couldn’t stop what was about to happen. The first male hesitated, which made the older one scoff.

“Cowards. I’ll do it.”

Sera sniffed and met his gaze, the blue of his stare as deep as the ice on a lake. Perhaps her death would be brutal and slow, but she was going to meet it head on. Her father had once told her that the best way to beat death was to acknowledge it as it was.

She had not understood then. Couldn’t make sense of how she was to know something was coming before it did.

But she understood now.

Those blue eyes narrowed and a cruel smile spread upon the male’s lips. “Brave thing, to look death in the eye.” He took out a dagger, the glint shining even in the heavy rain.

The first strike was the worst, especially as the knife got stuck.

Sera could not tell if the ringing in her ears, the screaming, was her mother’s doing or her own, but she knew she had lost control of her limbs, her soul, her heart, as that male hacked away at her most precious possession.

 _Please_ , she begged-screamed it, perhaps- _please let death come_.

…

Seraphim awoke to pain and death and stone.

A gasp left her and her back was on fire, the patter of something causing flashes of blinding pain all over her back.

The absence hit her so hard, her vision went black for a few moments before returning and she cursed her body for forcing her to open her eyes, for making her go through this torment.

_It’s a dream, it’s a dream, it’s a dream._

A moan threatened to leave her as Sera clawed at the ground.

_This is but a nightmare. This would never happen to you. This will be over soon._

_You will wake up._

“Cut off her head and then put them in the boxes.”

 _No, please, no_. Anything but her wings. Anything but this being real.

“We must go back to Spring and celebrate. This was a victory tonight.”

…

Sera came back to consciousness with a scream, but her voice gave out as soon as she opened her mouth, and a harsh voice shushed her.

“Shut up, you don’t want them to hear you.”

Perhaps before she had been brave, had stared death in the face, but now she was nothing and sobs left her as she noted the absence again, the hole that was so deep she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t live like this.

“I said shut up!”

A hand covered her mouth and she was roughly pulled to her feet.

…

“Wake up!”

Sera groaned, wondering when this hell would end, questioning what kind of god was so cruel as to not let her die.

“You need to get up.” It was a male voice, she thought, the one who had spoken in her defense before, and had still let them take her wings.

 _Oh, no, her **wings**_.

“No, no, don’t cry on me. You have to get up or you’re going to die.”

“Let me,” she answered, but nothing came out and this time, the male did not pull her to her feet, but he did grab her face.

Light hair, light eyes, the resemblance was clear. The ones who attacked her and her mother had to be family.

What kind of family went out to kill and maim for a living, she wondered, as her vision blurred.

“Shit,” she heard distantly, “I hate that I have to do this.”

Something was shoved into her mouth, some sort of liquid. It was so bitter, a coughing fit took over, so intense Sera had to sit up and heave. Her back was an inferno, like shards of glass being dragged upon it, salt being poured on the wounds.

“You have to get out of here,” the male said, standing up and moving away. “They might come back and notice I haven’t sent the boxes down the rivers.”

Another round of expletives left him and between half-lidded eyes Sera watched as he shook his wet hair with blood-covered hands. “Just…” every breath hurt, “just kill me.” She would do it herself if he wouldn’t. There was no way she could live her life without her wings.

The young male looked back at her and paused. He had the gall to cringe at her miserable form, and Sera hated that those eyes were on her. That he had seen her at her lowest and did not provide the remedy she needed.

“I’m not killing you. This was all…a mistake.” He cursed again, turning away. “You have to go. There’s a camp nearby, they’ll take you back to your brother.”

_No._

The last person she wanted to see was Rhysand. _Not like this_ , not without her wings.

She’d rather him think her dead.

“Kill me,” she ordered, thought her voice sounded shaky, weak.

The male shook his head again. “No. There is a camp nearby, you just have to walk for a little bit in that direction-” she didn’t care where he pointed “-and you’ll be fine.”

“No, please…”

But he had already disappeared.

…

“What’s wrong with you?”

Sera glared daggers at the other boy, lowering her face into her bowl, slowly eating the piping stew Kawan had made. The red-headed male had left to find them some water from the nearby stream and whenever he was gone the boy always tried to talk to her.

“Why don’t you talk?”

Her back ached, but she was used to the pain by now. She wondered if it would ever leave her.

“You haven’t even told us your name,” he scolded, and Sera glowered at his dark hair and up-tilted eyes. He seemed about her age, but sounded like he was five.

After the Spring male had left her close to the freezing river, Sera had come to the conclusion that she would just await death. She had been bleeding out and wild creatures would catch her scent if they hadn’t already. Death would follow soon, and she would be reunited with her mother and her wings and this torment would end.

But then the dream came.

It had been so vivid she had believed, at least for a few minutes, that it had been real. There were no words in her vocabulary to describe what she saw, but the word ‘home’ came close to it. It had been a place, but not. A destination, and a beginning. It was both a weapon and a flower. A part of her and something so foreign, she knew it would take a school full of scholars to even begin to decode it.

She awoke with a knowing, a feeling of outright truth that made it through her pain, the thirst and hunger. Her eyes had gone south, even when she had no clue which way that had been before.

Seraphim had started walking before her mind had caught up with what her body was doing. And she had no way of telling how much time had passed before she collapsed before a campsite. One that had already been occupied.

“We have to move; the weather will get worse.”

Swithon, the boy, jumped at the sound, and there was a dark sort of satisfaction in the fact that Sera had noticed Kawan arrive and he hadn’t.

It had been odd to see them accepting this dirty, bloody girl with no questions or requests. Kawan, the oldest of the three, was still young with unusual red hair and brown eyes. He had smiled at Sera when she awoke after arriving at the campsite, asking her if she ever dreamed.

The girl had been too numb to not accept their help, and while Swithon asked a thousand questions, he never once asked her if she wanted to go home or even where that was.

As the three of them walked further and further away from the Night Court, Seraphim couldn’t be more relieved.

**Author's Note:**

> Each chapter will have a different POV and some time skipping. This is pretty experimental so far, but I have a lot of hope for this series. Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
